One of the hidden treasures of Toronto’s public library system is the Osborne Collection of Early Children’s Books, tucked away in an unassuming building on the south edge of the University of Toronto campus. As a doctoral student, I savored the time I spent there, combing through stacks of century-old picture books and calling those hours of sheer delight “research” into Victorian culture.

A hundred years from now, I wonder what children’s books in the Osborne Collection will say about today’s…